LOUIS I DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDÉ
FROM AN ENGRAVING
Condé was ambitious; he was far from unsusceptible to flattery, and he ardently desired to recover his freedom. He looked at the subtle diplomatist who was speaking him so fair, and forced himself to believe that she was sincere in her protestations. He looked at Damville and his guards, and thought with a shudder of the gloomy fortress which he had lately left, and to which it would probably be his fate to return, if the negotiations were broken off. And then his glance wandered to the maids-of-honour, standing just out of earshot, and rested on Isabelle de Limeuil; and he felt his heart beat a trifle faster, as he noted her charming face and the graceful lines of her figure. Did she not represent all the pleasures of the Court from which he had been so long separated, but which it was now in his power to enjoy again?
The prince was already won over, already prepared to accept important modifications of the “Edict of January,” when, that same evening, with the consent of the Queen, he entered Orléans to confer with the council of the Protestant Association. He found the council divided into two sharply defined parties; on the one side were all the ministers, to the number of seventy-two, with Théodore de Bèze at their head; on the other, the great majority of the Huguenot gentlemen.
“The men of war demanded only peace; the ministers of the Holy Gospel called for the continuance of the war, at least until the “Edict of January” was re-established in its entirety, and invited the prince to require the King to mete out rigorous punishment to all ‘atheists, freethinkers, Anabaptists, Servetists, and other heretics and schismatics.’ Barely escaped from the stake themselves, they demanded the right to drag other victims to it.”[21]
With ill-concealed impatience, Condé listened to the demands of these intractable theologians; then, turning from them, he invited his old companions-in-arms to express their opinion. With one voice these gentlemen, who were heartily weary of the war and asked only to be allowed to return to their homes, declared themselves willing to accept peace on the conditions which the Court was prepared to offer. Strong in their support, the prince felt that he could afford to defy the ministers and the democratic section of the party; and when, on March 23, Coligny, fresh from his victorious campaign in Normandy, arrived at Orléans to take part in the negotiations, he found that he was too late. The Edict, or Peace, of Amboise had been promulgated in that town on the 19th, and published in the royal camp on the 22nd.
The Admiral was deeply mortified at Condé’s surrender, in which he suspected that personal considerations had counted for not a little, and declared, with pardonable exaggeration, that “by a stroke of the pen more churches had been ruined than the enemy could have razed in ten years.” As for the Huguenot ministers, they were exasperated to the last degree against the prince, stigmatized the treaty as “that of a man who had left half his manhood in captivity,” and accused him of having yielded to the seductions of Catherine’s Court, and of having halené her maids-of-honour.[22]
Somewhat conscience-stricken, Condé joined the Admiral in a belated attempt to get the articles modified in a Protestant sense, but, though Catherine agreed to some concessions, she firmly refused to allow them to be inserted in the edict. On April 1 she made her entry into Orléans, having the Cardinal de Bourbon on her right hand, and Condé on her left. A few days later, Coligny set out for Châtillon, to seek in the bosom of his family the repose which he had so well earned. Condé would have done well to follow his example. Unfortunately, he preferred to follow the Court to Amboise.
CHAPTER III
Catherine de’ Medici and her “escadron volant”—Adroitness with which the Queen employs the charms of her maids-of-honour to seduce the Huguenot chiefs—The King of Navarre and la belle Rouet—Policy of Catherine after the Peace of Amboise—She determines to compromise Condé with his foreign allies and the French Protestants, by encouraging his taste for sensual pleasures—And selects for his subjugation her maid-of-honour and kinswoman Isabelle de Limeuil—Description of this siren—Her admirers—Her mercenary character—Beginning of her liaison with the prince—Condé and Elizabeth of England—Mlle. de Limeuil, inspired by Catherine, seeks to persuade Condé to break with Elizabeth—Mission of d’Alluye to England—Condé is induced to take up arms against his late allies—Siege and surrender of Le Havre.